If, as I am apprehensive, my letter inclosing a two pound bill did not reach Burnett, you are ignorant that it is my intention to visit Yarmouth at the end of May, & pass a fortnight with you. how I shall arrange my march
remains to be settled, & I must consult the map, as if it be not too far out of the road I should like to see Amos Cottle at Cambridge on the way. of this however more in due season.

We are now at Bristol, on Kingsdown Parade, within a few doors of the
Montague. [1] you will direct to Cottles, altering however his direction to Wine Street, as he this day removes to the house which
Wade last inhabited. [2] in consequence of this revolution, he gives up the house in the Barton. this is news for Burnett, tho it may not interest you.

My book [3] is now rapidly advancing & the first volume will be finished within a week. when it is
compleated I shall make up a parcel, & I hope to get the books from the Green
by that time. I have Livy & Herodian & (I believe) Velleius Paterculus. [4] What
book are you now reading? by that time Jardines sermons [5] will be published, & I suppose Burnett
will chuse to have them. As a “lucid piece of mystical divinity” I may venture, without having yet seen it, to recommend him a sermon
upon the last verse of the first chapter of Matthew by ––– Gilbert, now in the press. [6]Lloyds book [7] will also be compleated. so that you will have a respectable cargo. Lloyd has begun another novel, [8] also in Letters. he tells me that one only character is
introduced in it, & that it will more resemble Werter [9] than any other book. In that stile of writing, in anatomizing the
feelings, I believe Lloyd will exceed any writer that this country has ever
produced. & perhaps – almost equal Goethe & Rousseau. Lamb has written a
little tale, about one volume full – of which I only know that it is very dismal & called Rosamund Grey. [10]

Is there a book society at Yarmouth like that of which Estlin Danvers & the Morgans are members? if not I think Burnett would do well in setting
some such scheme on foot, & I will send them <him> the regulations of the Bristol one. Mr Pitt [11] means to tax printing. this is part of his plan to check the diffusion of information & it
cannot be too vigorously counteracted.

I know not whether a little Bristol tittle-tattle may be news to Burnett – however let it go. John Morgan is to be married to
Caroline Kiddell. [12] poor Gilbert is deplorably in love with one of the daughters of that Wainhouse [13] whose poems are to be found in Burnetts Library, he says “she has a greater compass of mind than any woman he ever
conversed with. She ridicules him I understand. A debating society meet every Saturday night at the Red Lodge, the members are
respectable, & Gilbert the Cicero [14] of
the forum. I have never visited them yet, nor shall I speak when I go. I do not like these societies, they only encourage vanity &
excite bad feelings. When you ridicule the arguments of another you injure him & yourself.

I ought to have written to you before – but my leisure time is little, & no man wants more leisure than myself. the
idea of visiting Yarmouth pleases me much. I have not shaken Burnett by the hand since August 1796. I hope I look
forward to having a house in London in the course of the winter as a possible thing; so I hope George will be in town to assist my taste in fitting it up, & fill the friends bed.
this is possible, & if the possibility shall not be destroyed by any relaxation of exertion on my
part. To live always in lodgings is very expensive & very uncomfortable; I want to feel at home, & to have a home for my
friends.

Have you written any themes yet? of course I mean English th[MS torn] of all exercises I look upon this as the most
useful. facility of composition is useful in every possible situation.

My Uncle Hill has been in England. he came however no farther than Falmouth,
& merely to recover his health by the effect of a voyage, for he had been some time unwell. he wishes Tom to get on the Lisbon station, & if Tom chuses to go, Lord Proby will take him over. I have written him
word of this, & he will determine as his judgment thinks best.

[12] Possibly a relative of the Bristol merchant George Kiddell. Southey’s
information was incorrect: Morgan eventually married Mary Brent. However,
Morgan’s connections with the Kiddell family continued and in 1815, a George Kiddell assisted him in the negotiations over the
publication of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (1817). BACK

[13] William Wainhouse (1738/9-1797), Rector of Badgworth in Somerset and author of Poetical Essays
(Latin and English) Intended for Instruction and Amusement (1796). BACK

[14] Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman orator and politician. The Red Lodge is a Tudor building on Park Row in Bristol. BACK